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Rating: “Hello?”
“Michele, it's Giovanni”
“Hey Giovanni! What's up?”
“Just wanted to say hi, it's been a while since we last talked...what are you up to?”
“I'm listening to music, I've got Dream Theater's Octavarium in the player”
“Ah! Is it still your favorite band?”
“It has returned to being so with this album! You know, I'm certainly not a metalhead; I like melodies, verses, and choruses...and their last two albums were a bit too harsh for my tastes, but this one is very diverse and melodic...plus, there's this suite that elevates it a lot; it seems like the ultimate suite to me, a compendium of the best this musical form can offer. I often find myself listening to it on its own, without going through the fifty minutes of music that precede it on the CD...it has a crescendo and a final apotheosis that blows my mind...what do you think?”
“Well, I know the CD well, but I left DT a while ago, and Octavarium didn't change my mind, in fact...eternal gratitude for what they gave me in the beginning, but then...I still can't explain what happened to them! Everything was smooth sailing until Awake, or rather to “Change Of Season” (the suite): three and a half great records, or let's say two and a half because the old singer in the first one was pretty awful, with DT being just skilled and unique, their thousand musical influences were already there (and who doesn't have them?) but well blended together, it was just DT's music, and that's it, now it seems like they're slaloming between Yes Genesis Rush Floyd and more...but why?”
“Well, it doesn't bother me, I don't even pay attention to it, what I care about is good music, and Octavarium is great music...”
“Yes, great music but not the greatest...it will always lack something; it's like the top student who, when questioned, parrot-like recites the books, sentence by sentence, word for word, and the idiot teacher gives him the highest marks...I'd give him just a passing grade...”
“Now you're exaggerating; DT has a defined sound, also because their scores are not easily reproduced by others, and then LaBrie's timbre is unique; he opens his mouth, and you know it's him, he has a “texture” of voice that's beautiful, and his style, his approach...”
“Yes...when his bandmates don't force him out of his comfort zone...I think I have a clear idea about LaBrie: to me, he's a (great) A.O.R. singer, and that's it, he's not suitable for metal.”
“Oh, go to hell...”
“Come on! Listen carefully! He has a beautiful timbre, but when he doesn't push too hard, so in the ballads or anyway when he doesn't have to overshadow Petrucci's power chords and Portnoy's drum train...when he tries to be a metalhead, his voice becomes shrill, forced, disagreeable...”
“Look, at the end of Octavarium, those screams he pulls off before Petrucci's final apotheosis are fantastic, they give me chills...”
“Yes, I appreciated them too, but it's the exception that proves the rule...and let's not talk about when he covers Plant or other “historic” metalheads, frankly, it's almost ridiculous...he doesn't have Plant's hippy spirit, or let's say Hetfield's mocking drive...certainly, it's quite a job he does!”
“In what sense, sorry…”
“He's Canadian, and he lives in his country, so every time he takes a plane to meet the others in New York, they go to the rehearsal room, and he gets entire quarters of new Dream Theater music already well-arranged, often complicated, and he has to fit in melodic lines! Not easy, in fact, in many pieces, the vocal line seems patched up…”
“Certainly not in Octavarium, which is very compact, sequential, and harmonic, a quarter of the lyrics are even his…, but back to the point, will you tell me finally why you find this suite so “derivative,” as they say, who do you find in it?”
“Quite a few people. The start is that of “Crazy Diamond” by Floyd, with the large keyboard pad and over it the lap steels (the first by Petrucci, the second, a bit unsure, by Rudess)…”
“Don't tell me you hear a taste of Jethro Tull just for that solo flute!”
“In fact, no! Not at all Tull, Anderson never played the flute that way; his style has much more attack, and well, that in Octavarium is a classical approach, among other things, it's an orchestral musician who performs it. They could have kept it, frankly; the melodic theme is quite flat, and the similarities are rather with Genesis from the Gabriel era when Peter was dabbling in playing similar flute passages. The entire first part, with LaBrie’s calm verses on piano and 12-string, is very Genesis-like…”
“And when the music shifts, the rhythm section comes in, and LaBrie moves up an octave?”
“Here come the Yes! In fact, the whole structure of the piece mainly recalls the scheme of “Close To The Edge,” with the great finale and the fade-out (at this point the similarity is blatant...)
“And what do you say about Rudess?”
“Very present, more than usual, very bright...but he's the most derivative of all...”
“However, the mandatory unison parts with Petrucci are terrifying...”
“As always...they do these “Flight of the Bumblebee” of unheard precision, and there's one in Octavarium that's terrifying...but I prefer other moments, for example, the angry Hammond chords that suddenly emerge in a passage between solos...what a sublime timbre ahh...do you remember Ken Hensley with Uriah Heep? That stuff reminds me of that!”
“Great Hammond that of Hensley! It spoke! What drives me crazy are those six seconds of acoustic that Petrucci brings to the forefront over those breaks, in full electric chaos. What a drive! What class...”
“True, here we are at the best of DT, and Petrucci is also fantastic at the end, with those melodic designs on the high notes in the final triumph, full of feeling, full of heart...and full of intonation! Not easy to hold those vibratos, expressive but neither dropping nor rising...surely, I like how Octavarium ends more than how it starts…”
“I feel it as a whole...but what I still don't hear is the Myung, but why?”
“Mystery...you hear every cymbal of Portnoy, but the bass in this band never comes out of the mix...not in the studio and even less live, maybe it’s the Yamaha, maybe it’s his fingers...”“
Well, I stand by my opinion, Octavarium is the perfect suite, it has everything in it, it's become my favorite Dream track…
“And I stand by mine, it's something that deserves a nice seven but no more...mind you, there should be more bands like Dream, with all the crap that's trending! It's serious people, who work hard to play well… just that… they don't warm me anymore! Great admiration and respect, but it's not love.”
“Bye Giovanni, you don't understand a thing but you're the best!”
“You too Michele, rock on anyway!”
“Always! Bye” - CLICK
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